The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
In general, an air conditioning system for a vehicle includes an air conditioning module warming or cooling a passenger compartment of the vehicle. The air conditioning module uses a compressor to circulate a heat exchange medium through a condenser, an expansion valve, an evaporator, etc. With this arrangement, the air conditioning system warms up or cools the cabin of the vehicle.
In the vehicle having a conventional internal combustion engine, the engine produces the power and heat used for the operation of the air conditioning system. Meanwhile, electricity is the sole or main power source for running environmentally friendly vehicles such as an electric vehicle, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, a fuel cell vehicle, and a hybrid vehicle, so that the consumption of electricity directly affects the travel capacity of the vehicles. The auto-industry has strived for developing various technologies and systems to improve energy efficiency of the air conditioning system and at the same time for simplifying the system to reduce weight and manufacturing cost.
In one form, a heat pump system for environmentally friendly vehicles has been developed to increase the heating and cooling efficiency and thus to increase the travel capacity of the vehicles. The heat pump system may function to provide both cooling and heating the passenger compartment a vehicle based on selected modes. The heat pump system may include a high pressure loop and a low pressure loop. The high pressure loop is used to circulate a high pressure heat exchange medium such as a refrigerant: namely a refrigerant circuit, whereas the low pressure loop is used to circulate a low pressure heat exchange medium such as a coolant: namely, a coolant circuit. The environmentally friendly vehicle controls the temperature of the passenger compartment by the electrically powered heat pump system.
Since the heat pump system draws electric energy from the total energy saved for the vehicle (e.g., electric vehicle), reducing energy used by the heat pump system contributes to improving the travel capacity and energy efficiency of the vehicle.